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Intel’s 14nm Broadwell Systems Are here but Might Be Shortlived

Intel’s Broadwell generation ran into some trouble last year and as a result of this, the launch got delayed. In return, this means that the new 5th generation Intel Core processors will have a short lifespan until the 6th generation launches later this year. The Broadwell range of processors might however still be a valid option for many people as it retains the current socket and will be supported by current generation 9-series motherboards.

Major pre-built desktop manufacturers have begun to list systems with the new Broadwell processors and the highlights are the Core i5-5675C and the Core i7-5775C. These processors aren’t exactly successors to the current flagships, but they do come with an unlocked multiplier and a reduced power consumption. Whether the reduced 65W TDP will result in better overclocking abilities is yet to be seen, but in theory it should and they could come out as a winner on that front.

Broadwell is essentially a shrunken Haswell, but Intel did add a couple new features such as ADCX that will improve things, but nothing that is a real game changer. The i5-5675C has 4MB L3 cache and the i7-5775C has 6MB L3 cache, but both feature the Iris Pro 6200 iGPU with full support for DX12 and 4K resolutions. The added 128MB eDRAM cache helps to achieve the new resolution standards such as 4K and 5K by keeping the most relevant information stored here and only using the system memory for the lesser uses resources. The Iris Pro 6200 also supports the VP8 decoder to achieve full hardware decoding that works on any resolution and with cropping.

Where this 5th generation is an entry into the 14nm CPU world, the real change will come with the 6th generation Skylake with support for both DDR3 and DDR4 memory, and that will hopefully also be the time where we’ll see DDR4 memory prices fall to a more consumer-friendly level.